Wow. 

I had no interest in seeing this movie.  Zack, who is taking a film class at school, came to me last weekend with a deal; if he brings home another exemplary progress report for the week, I'd take him to Pan's Labyrinth this weekend.  And he would write a paper on it for class.

So, yesterday we went to the early show.  Really early.  The local theater has a deal where if you go before lunch, it's only 5 bucks a ticket.  There were only four people in the theater.  I was hoping it would just be me and Zack so we could talk all the way through it like we do at home.  We NEVER talk at the theater.  That would be rude.  In fact, I almost jumped down some open throats at Dreamgirls when some teenagers behind us talked through the opening scenes.  My sister and I turned in unison ("and this one is done in PERFECT UNISON!") and growled "Quiet!". It worked.  Didn't hear another peep out of them.  More movie goers should refuse to take it when the mannerless offend.  Sometimes the mannerless are just clueless.

I had no expectations of Pan's Labyrinth.  No idea what it was about, where it was set, what the time period was, nothing.  I knew it was in Spanish with English subtitles.  That's it.

It's only February, but I seriously doubt I'll see a better movie this year.

Definitely not for everyone.  It's an old fashioned faery tale.

By that I mean it's scary as heck, grisly, bloody and tense.   Real fairy tales are nothing at all like Disney would have you believe.  In the old folk tales and mythology, Faeries are  NOT benevolent creatures.  They were forever trying to lure, trick and trap mortals into dreadful, dangerous situations or enslave them through faery glamour to keep them in faeryland.  Faeryland, by the way is nothing like a Disneyfied Fairy Land.  When a mortal was somehow able to break the spell of glamour cast over him by whatever enchantment was used, he invariably found himself not in some beautifully appointed underground kingdom, but in a muddy hole in the ground infested with worms and bugs.  That was faeries for you.  Folk tales involving Faery Glamour were pretty much the first stories about virtual reality.  Call it the Celtic Matrix.
 
Ofelia, the main character, had to have been braver than I am to cavort with the faeries in this movie.  Her faery starts out looking like a praying mantis and when it assumes it's faery shape,  it's hardly more appealing.  The faun she meets in the labyrinth is no Mr. Tumnus.  Ed Gein would hesitate to have tea with this guy.  On the other hand, Ofelia's reality is so frightening that it's easy to understand how anything else would appeal to her.

There are three aspects of the plot going on here and they all come together at the end, part of which is ambiguous enough that you can choose to believe what ever you like best.

It made me cry.

 

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